And Once
by HarleyandDavid
Summary: Partner in crime gave me the prompt: Priest and Black Hat, before Sola Mira, them in a silent companionable moment and had me listen to the song Stuck by Mackintosh Braun while I wrote.  T for blood and no other reason.  Enjoy.


**Title:** And Once

**Author:** Harley

**Fandom:** Priest  
><strong>Rating: <strong>T for blood at the most, but no actual violence  
><strong>Length:<strong> 600 words

**Warning(s):** Nothing really, that I can think of.

**Pairing/Characters:** Priest and Black Hat companionship, nothing relationship like, nothing heavy, nothing at all really. Just them, you know?

**Disclaimer:** I do not own this movie... well, actually, I own a blue-ray copy but I don't own the rights or anything. I can only claim to have seen it twice in theaters, several times at home, and to own a copy of it. Otherwise, not mine sadly (otherwise there would have been down right sex).  
><strong>AN:** This is kind of an apology. For not having the second chapter to _In the Twilight of Us_ done yet. But school came up and things happened and I haven't gotten to catching up yet, I'm trying to though. So, this was something I did a while back for D.A.V.I.D and the prompt was to use the song Stuck by Mackintosh Braun to write a fic about their friendship before Black Hat is turned. So, I went with that. And this is what we got. I changed up the end a bit just for you guys. Anyway, I'll try and get the second chapter to _In the Twilight of Us _done soon. But, no promises. I know where it's going, it's just doing it slowly. Also, before I go, that long ass quote at the beginning of the story is something I came up with, it's my quote. I wanted something relatively religious, or at least something to that extent but no quotes I could think of worked, and I couldn't think of a title before hand, so I wrote this in replace of a title. So, like I said, mine, only thing out of this whole fic that I actually own. But if you have read something similar somewhere else, let me know, give me a link even and I'll give claim to them too for coming up with whatever sooner. Also, if no one can tell, I like using metaphors about breaking bread together in a couple of my fics, I don't know if any so far have had them, but I mention them in here.

Anyway, thank you all for your support and patience and I'll try and get the fic finished soon. Bye, my luvlies.

EDITS: I had some complaints about the end so seeing as I did some edits and finished up _In the Twilight of Us_ I did some edits here too. So, here is the cleaned up version of this. Don't know if the ending is any better but *shrugs* I personally like it a bit better. Thanks for all your support and being so awesome to us despite our lack of posting :}

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><p>Though I speak no evil, nor hear or see it, no man can avoid it.<p>

As a human, I do know of it.

For I have felt it's comforting embrace.

And I have tasted its sweet temptations.

I have walked with it, not as a friend.

Not as a companion, but as its observer.

And once,

Within the dark of a moonless night,

I dined with him.

Rays peaked over the baked land as we fell back to sit against a piece of crumbling wall. Blood stuck to our faces and clothes making his hair clump on his forehead and mine turn red with the color. Slick and tacky at the same time along skin where it seeped through cloth. Bodies littered the ground in front of us, gaping and eyeless. Adrenaline still pumped like liquid fire through my veins, heart thudding against a heaving chest. And I'm sure, from the restless look in his eyes, it was similar for him. Leaning my head back against the cement I exhaled an 'amen,' closing my eyes as exhaustion seeped into my body and settled in my joints. I felt his knuckles brush against the sleeve of my arm, no pressure, but the sway of the fabric had me opening my eyes. He silently offered a canteen of water without looking at me.

I tipped my head gratefully, taking the cold metal between my dirt encrusted hands and sipping from the precious liquid. Handing back the canteen, out of the corner of my eye I caught a gleam of the metal in the light of the rising sun. The gesture wasn't not lost on me. Offering me his water first, and sipping from the same cup. It was almost touching for him to offer a quiet moment such as this. So I offered a similar gift, pulling a nutrition supplement and splitting it in half, handing him one while slowly eating from my own. He tilted his head in a similar manner and we continued as if we were sharing wine and breaking bread at a table of our brothers.

We didn't know each other's names, in fact I almost wonder if I even remember my own. But the soft breeze and the comfortable silence of the early morning was… nice. Instances like this were rare and gone in the same fashion they came, in an instant. But, that made them all the more memorable. My companion glanced at me then, and I made brief eye contact. If this were two normal people, in a normal situation we would be smiling and probably turn away laughing. But we are trained not to. And this wasn't the most normal of situations. With sizzling bodies of vampires cooking in the sun, and their blood caking and flaking on our skin, making it irritate and protest, this could never be a normal situation.

We should have probably left by now, but neither of us wanted to be the first to break the silence. Instead we enjoyed the companionship, the camaraderie of the stillness as we shared his wine and my bread.

And for once, since starting our missions, we were at peace of mind and wholeness of body. And I thought of someone for the first time in my new life as 'friend.'

-v-v-

It wasn't till later, after the train, after the church, after it all, that I would realize the irony of it. The one person I thought as friend was the one person I betrayed. The one person I failed to save. And the one person I let go.

Twice.


End file.
